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Can we just deport him? And no I am not talking about a Somalian, but Alexander Ovechkin. He just appeared in a Russian political ad. When asked why he did that he replied, “I’m Russian, I support my country”. But here’s the thing the west and to a lesser extent the US is at war with Russia. Undeclared and without ground troops, but we are contributing financing, seized Russian assets, and have and probably still provide intelligence to the Ukrainian side. I think supporting a foreign government at war with America is perfectly fine grounds to deport someone.
The counter argument and I think a reasonable opinion for letting him stay is that cultural exchange makes peace easier. So there are solid grounds for letting him stay. I probably take the opinion that letting him play hockey in the US is better for US foreign policy than deportation.
From a cultural war perspective I would love Trump to deport him and make the lefties who “support Ukraine” make arguments for why Ovechkin in ICE shackles is a bad thing. Meh “free speech”. I did the AI thing and it sounds like he doesn’t have US citizenship but if he did he would make a perfect test case for denaturalization. Declaring yourself to have loyalties to a foreign government at war with the US seems absolutely perfect for denaturalization.
Also, nice culture war on Trump is a Russian agent by deporting a Russian. And it fits with the meme “we need them for the sports ball team”.
He’s just a perfect test case for deportation since his politics are against the US left instead of their Hamas adjacent friends who a broad swath of the left supports.
First - we don't want to. Obviously Trump is not suffering by the sand in the vagina syndrome (real idiom from my country btw) that Macron, Ursula and Boris have on the topic.
Second - Russia is not in war with the USA and this is why USA is treating them ambivalently - i have often said that USA - RU alliance is too natural for it not to happen eventually. Yes Washington is making Moscow's life harder when it is low cost and for the lulz, but they don't really give a fuck about it. Which I think even people close to Zelensky start to realize, even if he is too dense to see it.
Third - unlike some of the elite human capital that is better candidate to be deported - he is not a parasite, he is not a drain on the safety net, not breaking any laws, he is culturally integrated, making a good salary - so why bother.
You're going to have to elaborate, because that seems like the opposite of natural. Russia is overperforming diplomatically right now because there are strong Russophilic and Tyrannophilic elements of the current administration and the populist right more generally, but in the long run American and Russian interests diverge. Aside from the fact that Russian and American foreign policy establishments are full of people who fundamentally distrust each other, Russia's desire for European hegemony is incompatible with the US' relationship with Europe.
There was a Tom Clancy novel in this vein The Bear and the Dragon. One of the later Jack Ryan novels where he becomes president and his best buddy becomes vice president. A pseudo-Putin ex-kgb Russian president discovers major resources in the far east of Russia, an expansionist Chicomm government looking for resources and lebensraum* invades Russia, the US steps in and kicks the piss out of the Chinese invasion force on livestream using drones**, the Chicomms in desperation launches ICBMs at Washington, which an Aegis destroyer shoots down with President Ryan personally on deck***. In the aftermath of the failed invasion and stalled nuclear attack, the Chinese government falls to a group of student protestors angered by watching the Chinese army get wrecked on livestream.
The "natural" alliance theory of Russia and the United States relies on the idea of creating an other who they both hate more. This idea comes up every few decades, often with a different boogeyman. The USA and the USSR were natural allies against the Nazis. They were natural allies against international Islamic terrorism. They are natural allies against China. They are natural allies in the face of alien invasion. Etc.
One can see the outline of the logic. Both are frontier peoples, the Americans went west and the Russians east. They each have vast hinterlands of natural resources existing alongside urbanized industrial and post-industrial cores. Once you create an evil anti-western-civilization threat, they both look pretty similar by comparison. It normally involves a hopeful projection that Russians want to embrace American values, and I suppose that when the same theory is offered in Russia they project Russian values onto the American people.
The irony of the novel two decades on is of course that it was both very prescient, we really have seen the invading expansionist army of a declining power shredded live on the internet; and very wrong, it was Putin's army that was embarrassed on livestream and it has had no discernible negative impact on his hold on domestic power. The people did not, in fact, rise up after watching a promised easy victory over a declining neighbor devolve into sci-fi murderbots wiping out a generation of men. And while there may be a rapprochement between the current American and Russian presidents, it doesn't represent a personal bond between two noble ex-intelligence operators seeking to bring Russia into the liberal Capitalist future, but a friendship between two regressive oligarchies who admire each other's efforts at kleptocracy.
*Seeking to save their economy after President Ryan implements trade sanctions (due to a controversy over a forced abortion and a murdered Catholic bishop, this was at the height of the One Child policy, and there was a broad right-wing fear of the ruthless forced abortion population reduction policy. This has, of course, entirely flipped, it's almost impossible to imagine the Chinese forcibly murdering babies in the name of population control today.
**There's also a subplot where a pseudo Vasily Zaitsev old man in the mountains WWII vet snipes the Chicomm commanding general
***After President Ryan personally allows soldiers on duty to smoke cigarettes, improving morale and productivity. It's an excellent 1000 pages of Tom Clancy stuff.
That book broke the brains of both Reddit and the entire national security establishment, and it’s why they threw out Kissinger’s dire prophecy in favor of video game logic.
To be honest, I wasn't sure anyone other than me ever read that book. Was it really popular in any way?
Apparently it was also popular with all of the Reddit users during the year 2000, burgeoning cultural juggernaut Reddit was then.
I didn't even know it existed back then
It very much did not, I was, as you might say, "taking the piss" it didn't start until 2005
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